Happily Ever After
by x-kate17-x
Summary: Sickeningly fluffy one-shot. Whatever pairing you wish to interpret it as, really. Not the sort of thing I usually write, but variety is the spice of life, right?


This can be any pairing you want - Tate, McAbby, Kibbs, Tiva, Gabby, Jibbs, Tabby, Tony/Jeanne... Aren't I kind? The only thing it can't be is anything in Series 5, because the UK is so far behind... or at least, if you do decide you think it's something that happened in S5, don't tell me, 'kay? Enjoy :-)

Disclaimer: I don't own 'em.

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You hold your memories up like portraits in a gallery, protected and guarded, beautiful, individual, unique. You can walk through your mind as you would a museum, marvelling at the webs of happiness that have been spun from the precious strands of your time together. You can lift them out of their protective casings one by one and admire them, share them, then wrap them up and return them.

There's the time you stayed up all night. It was going to be the first night the two of you... you know. You bought candles and wine and stayed in a posh hotel with the most beautiful stained glass panels in the lobby, and you ate lobster from room service and drank champagne out of crystal glasses. And you had such a good time just talking, enjoying each other's company, that any ideas of sordid sex antics in the luxurious silken bed sheets were forgotten and you fell asleep in one another's arms on the sofa at five am.

Over here, the time you tried to have a fourth of July picnic. She made pavlova with strawberries and blueberries, and you bought red, white and blue paper napkins. She made sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly, made with deliciously sweet raspberry jam and bread she baked herself. You dug your Grandma's picnic blanket out of the box of junk in your spare room – the one with red, white and blue checks. She wore a white dress, you wore a blue shirt, and she turned up at your door and took your breath away. It rained. Torrents of rain that were almost unheard of at this time of year and rendered anything outdoors-y impossible. So you strung cheap bunting across your own ceiling and had a picnic on your living room floor. The rain died down enough for fireworks, and the two of you went out onto the balcony and held hands to watch the bursts of colour explode across the city.

Look, the night you undressed in front of him for the very first time. You slipped off your shoes, and slid your dress off your shoulders, and stepped out of your underwear, and his jaw dropped. Your shoes were from the most expensive designer boutique you could afford without taking out a loan, presenting your pedicured feet in all their pampered glory. Your dress was silk, woven by the finest dress makers in the business and painstakingly hand embroidered, clinging to the curves that should be there and skimming magically over the ones that shouldn't. Your underwear was made of the most exquisite lace, showcasing your figure and revealing just enough to be tantalising and not enough to be slutty. But when you shed any protection offered by the illusions those expensive garments offered you, took it all off and stood in front of him with your skin gleaming and heart pounding, he looked at you like that and you felt more beautiful than you ever had before.

And there, see? That heat wave in the middle of October. You went to Toys R Us, queued for thirty minutes, spent over a hundred bucks on the biggest water gun you'd ever seen, and surprised her by drenching her as she walked down the street to meet you. She ran away shrieking, her legs pounding as you shot after her and she screamed so loudly when you caught her that a policeman in the café over the street abandoned his coffee and came to make sure you weren't trying to rape her, while old ladies stood around and shook their heads. And when she assured the policeman you were her boyfriend, and he gave you a congratulatory smirk, you felt more of a man than you ever had before.

Here, the night he kissed you for the first time ever. You were cold, so he gave you his jacket and walked with his arm around your shoulders. You got home, he deposited you on your doorstep, and you made small talk. It was a nice date, you said. It would be nice to do it again, he said. Yes, you agreed, that would be very nice. Same time next week, he suggested, and you nodded shyly. That would be nice. And then he leant forward and kissed you on the lips, and you knew that 'nice' didn't begin to describe it.

Over there, look, there's the time you ditched your friends for her. Her grandmother died; she was at home, you were at a bar. It was eight thirty in the evening, she rang you in tears and asked you to come over. You promised her you'd be there in ten minutes. You weren't – you made it in five. You gave your friends twenty bucks to cover your share of drinks, said you were going to her place, and didn't deny it when they said you were in love.

And there – the time he won you a pink fluffy teddy bear with his perfect score at the target game at the funfair. You were never a pink fluffy teddy kinda girl, but he was never much of a funfair kinda guy and he made the effort anyway. So you carried the bear under your arm all day and gave him pride of place at the end of your bed when you got home. You named him Ted, because it had been a stereotypical date on a stereotypical summer's day and your stereotypical prize deserved a stereotypical name. And you never told anyone, but you treasured Ted more than the cherished jewellery box your grandpa gave you when you turned twenty-one.

Here, see, the time you slept under the stars. You were camping. You were drinking beer from the bottle and your fingers were slick with condensation and loose with alcohol, so the pegs went in wonky, the ties went on loose, and your tent fell on top of you when you went to bed. So you balled it up into a canvas pile and discarded it. You put on extra sweaters and socks, and curled up in the same sleeping bag, and lay on your backs and stargazed until your eyes closed.

And there's the time you told her you loved her. It was winter, snowy and frosty. Your nose was red from the cold and her teeth were chattering. It wasn't romantic – lights were twinkling, but they were tacky and plastic. Snow was falling, but it was in icy gusts that blew into down your neck and up your sleeves. You'd been ice skating, but it had been something of a disaster and you were both bruised, sore and humiliated. As you slunk back to her place to nurse your wounds, you turned to her and told her that you loved her. She leapt into your arms, you skidded on the slushy sidewalk, and you both landed with a bump in the snow.

And over here – see her sleeping in the passenger seat of your car with your jacket draped over her like a blanket? You were driving home from a weekend away. It was dark, raining; tough driving conditions. She was supposed to be navigating, but she'd fallen asleep. You didn't know where you were or where you were headed, whether you were nearly home or were halfway to Kansas. The map was crinkled in her lap, it's red and blue lines impossible for you to follow at the same time as you watched the road. You wasted almost an entire tank of gas that night, driving round and trying to read road signs in the dark. You got home at three o' clock in the morning, instead of your intended eleven o' clock at night, because you took the wrong highway and didn't realise until you crossed state lines. You had a headache for days, from squinting out into the torrential downpour and trying to tell whether the big dark shape approaching the car was another vehicle with no lights, a tree, or simply a shadow. You didn't wake her, though. She slept through the whole thing, with her lips parted and her hair curling around her ears as she dreamed.

Look, the time you were waiting in line at the grocery store together and the child behind threw a tantrum. 'I hate kids', he muttered, and you thought your heart would break right in two. But then he took your hand and smiled. 'Ours won't be like that', he promised, and you lost your place in line because you were kissing him so hard.

And over there... you, crying as you realised that saying 'I love you', meaning it, feeling right down between your ribs, is not the same as admitting defeat.

There, look, do you see? The time she came home with a Barney's bag the size of a small city and a guilty grin even bigger. She promised and bargained and begged until you agreed to let her keep the shoes that maxed out the card on your joint account – she didn't know yet that it wasn't necessary, that all she had to do was smile. And she showed her gratitude to you the following month, by maxing the card out again in Victoria's Secret.

Over there, your first Halloween together. You were going to a party. You scrubbed and exfoliated and moisturised until every inch of your very exposed body was perfect. You primped and preened in front of the mirror, until your eyelashes reached your eyebrows and your mouth was redder than a rosebud in its prime. You slithered into your dress, which was so contoured to your skin that you couldn't even fit underwear underneath it, and you put on a pair of heels with height to rival the Chrysler Building. He turned up ten minutes early to pick you up. You never made it to the party.

There's the time you went to the mall and acted like teenagers, walking through the crowds with your hands tucked in one another's back pockets, winning five bucks in the arcades and jumping up and down like you won the lottery, sucking fruit-flavoured lollipops and swapping 'a lick for a lick' of each other's. You went to the movies and sat in the back row so you could make out, and freaked out all the sixteen-year-olds who considered any physical interaction between anybody over the age of twenty-four to be practically necrophilia.

All those times, those precious moments as you walked down the street holding hands, kissing in doorways, being disgustingly happy. The times you vowed to stay like forever and ever, no matter what. You can look at them whenever you please, constantly taking them and laughing over them and then putting them back, rearranging them to make room for new ones.

They say happy love stories are boring. How does it feel to bore everyone to tears?


End file.
